NEWPORT BEACH, CA – A team of homebuilding professionals who joined forces in a special project to create new opportunities in a down market, has been honored with the first-ever Gold Nugget Grand Award for “Imagining the Future – Open Class Design Charrette,” a new category that was created to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Pacific Coast Builders Conference (PCBC).
Spearheaded by John Martin of Martin & Associates, a leading community planning, design and marketing firm, the GEN M 2345 team created a comprehensive plan to transform a 23-acre site in Huntington Beach that was previously slated for single family homes. Their new concept, Sea•Shore Village, is envisioned as a collection of multi-generational neighbourhoods with affordable homes to fit changed lifestyles and life stages. The new village design features a three unit building with proximity and privacy for 3, 4, and maybe even 5 generations, home-based business opportunities, two story townhomes with the master bedrooms on the first level, and compact carriage units. The unique layouts are designed to accommodate move-down baby boomers, their aging parents, and their boomerang adult and returned-from-college children to all live comfortably together. GEN M stands for multi-generational and 2345 represents the 2, 3, 4 and 5 generations of residents who could live together in similar villages, neighbourhoods, and homes in the future.
“Gen M 2345’s message is one of hope,” Martin explained. “Hope that we can turn the market around sooner rather than later. It provides the vision to create new concepts for a different market reality, and it demonstrates how to increase values in a down economy. We are very proud that our innovative blueprint for the future was rewarded with the Gold Nugget Grand Award.”
The award was shared by the entire GEN M 2345 team. These visionary leaders were inspired by the severe challenges facing the housing industry in the current recession, including a deep reduction in the availability of equity capital and financing. To meet those challenges head-on, they created a complementary, interdisciplinary creative and implementation team to conceive, design, process, finance, develop and market innovative product concepts that can be successfully developed immediately. Ironically, the team's solution – multi-generational housing – is directly related to the current economic downturn. A recent survey conducted by AARP found that as Americans of all ages feel the effects of the economic crisis, more and more people have to live with a family member or friend to share expenses. The survey also revealed a direct relationship between loss of income and young adults moving back in with their parents. Clearly, there is increased demand for a multi-generational solution like GEN M 2345's Sea•Shore Village, and the group demonstrated its viability from a financial standpoint.
Learn more about John Martin and Associates at www.martin-associates.net.
